The Netherlands’ most famous restaurant critic, Johannes van Dam, died

The Netherlands’ most famous restaurant critic, Johannes van Dam, died yesterday in the OLVG hospital at the age of 66. Johannes van Dam (1946 – 18 September 2013) was a Dutch journalist and the country’s best-known writer on food. Van Dam wrote a regular column on food for the national daily Het Parool for almost 25 years. He was an authority on food; his reviews, though mainly positive, could lead to a restaurant being closed down. He also published several books about food and cooking. The most successful of these was the De Dikke Van Dam, a 700-page opus covering food from A to Z. It’s still on my list!